WORKING ON THE RAIL: Railway enthusiast Charlie Mead, with a picture of him in his younger years working on the North East railway line.

“I LOOK back and I never seen anything like it – carriages, people everywhere and it can be quite confronting when you get there,” Charlie Mead says with a large amount of fondness.

It’s also a sombre sentiment from Charlie Mead too whose involvement in the Violet Town Southern Aurora disaster of 1969 was a defining moment for him and his career on the railways.

He was one of the first on the scene, having worked on the railways for 12 years at that point, and It was then pleasing for Mr Mead when he heard news of the memorial built acknowledging the accident will be heading into stage two of works.